July 3, 2022

I can’t remember if the last time I was in a church building was when I went to vote at the local Anglican Church or when I stepped inside a downtown cathedral during Doors Open Toronto. The last service I attended was on May 1. I conducted that one and preached.

I have enjoyed my quiet Sunday mornings. I’m just starting to feel a little restless. It’s time to think about where I might worship.

Like a lot of pastors, I have not often attended services during summer vacation. Some of us have admitted that along the way. Many of us find it difficult to suspend critical judgment and just let others lead us in worship and preach to us. I find it hard not to analyze liturgies, re-write sermons, and imagine how I would have done it. That makes it hard to engage in worship.

Pastors often say they need to find alternative places to worship while they’re still active in congregational ministry. They don’t experience worship while they’re leading it. I have been blessed to serve churches, especially Glenview, where I worshiped while I presided. This was certainly true during sacraments. Music was a big part of it. But it took me almost thirty years to learn to relax and let the liturgy flow, and move me with it once it began.

When I went to teach full time in 2009, I worshiped and preached in United Churches across the country. Most of them were served and led by “my” AST students. When I was at home on Sunday I attended our neighbourhood United Church. I was too familiar with the Presbyterian congregations in Halifax and Dartmouth. I needed to sense displacement. St. John’s United offered that. They worshiped in an alternate space and were still experiencing displacement. It took a few Sundays, but I did find comfort in being a worshiper among others, sitting in the back of the room. It helped that I already knew and appreciated the preacher. She fed my soul every week, and occasionally blew my mind, too.

Colleagues have already asked me which Presbyterian congregation Janet and I will join. I’ve said we intend to wait a little while, and they shouldn’t assume we’ll choose within the PCC. I’ve talked to another recent retiree, married to a minister as I am. She said the same thing. I know we’re not the only ones. Beyond the problems– better say challenges— that preoccupy the PCC, there are exhausting, enervating politics in every denomination. Those of us who served our churches by participating in what one friend calls the ecclesiocracy, especially, need to step out of it. At least for a time.

I know it’s not all about me and what I want. Still, there are some things that I know can break through my retired-minister-retired-homiletics-professor defenses. I’m not looking for perfection. I am looking for perfection in the Biblical sense. That is what is done in service of a purpose, and clearly suits that purpose and none other.

I hunger for excellence. Not the biggest. Not the best, by any common measure. I need to see and hear and feel that everyone present is doing their absolute most to offer God something beautiful. I have found it in worship in places big and small and in-between. I’ve experienced it in preaching that I would give an A-plus and through preachers and sermons that fit their context, even if they would fall flat in a classroom, a chapel, or any other parish pulpit.

It helps me if I discover that everyone who leads a service– everyone present, in fact– enjoys what they’re doing. (I think there’s something in the Shorter Catechism about that.)

All of this means I’ll be doing some church-shopping. Better to say congregation-shopping? When I’m ready to engage with other people and build relationships. I don’t yet understand why, but I know I’m not ready yet.

In the meantime I rest, I meditate, I read, and I remember.